“The ship of the Nigerian State is floundering. It is in fact heading towards a titanic rick and Nigerians from all parts of the country must rise up to halt the drift. All Nigerians must speak up, silence cannot be golden at these times, and silence in this time is crime against humanity. Yoruba from pre-independence era have labored along with other Nigerian patriots to build this potentially great country. Has Nigeria’s potential been realised? No. Centrifugal tendencies often threatened to tear this country apart, but the Yoruba people, our founding fathers and patriots at all times have always risen to the occasion to stem such tendencies”.
Ibadan Declaration, Dr. Kunle Olajide, Chairman, Planning Committee, Yoruba Summit- Sun Newspaper, 14th September, 2017, by Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Aware of the atrocities committed by the Federal Troops in Asaba, October 7, 1967, General Yakubu Gowon queried the Second Divisional Command and re-issued a new Code of Conduct for that Army’s forward location. The bloody-cuddling Asaba experience in many ways checkmated the advancing Nigerian, soldiers who, in finally overrunning the Igbo heartland in early January of 1970 exhibited some far reaching magnanimity to the Biafran side. Indeed, it was an unexpected resolution with an equally unusual outcome, judging by the implacable positions maintained by the parties in conflict.”
That surprise spring into the Igbo heartland which ended the war was a strategic touch finish assault from an unheralded Commander. Before the slow but engaging and steady new Commander of the ferocious Third Marine Commandoes, there was the fire eater, messianic scorpion, Brigadier Benjamin Adekunle. A lot has been said and written about his battle diaries, his politics and his international standings.
In the long line chain of inventory of Nigeria Heads of State, Historians will always pause and acknowledge his extraordinary difference from the pack. Love him or not, he was able to keep his records, write his books and update his diaries. Apart from Zik of Africa, there is no other one in that revered list that has so much record and now the General is building the most respected Presidential library in Africa. A gigantic edifice and totally propelled by the most state of the arts technologies, the Obasanjo library is confounding and at the same time welcoming to the enquiring mind. This soldier’s love, and assiduous accomplishment with books flies on top of the ceiling when we remember that some of our equally gifted leaders like, Awo, Balewa, Aminu Kano, Okpara and even Ojukwu who studied History at Oxford, all have almost nothing on print for the records.
Gentlemen, it was General Olusegun Obasanjo that gave us the Classic, Nzeogwu. In that intimate Biography, we saw beyond the canvass the real personality that forced the first attempted Nigerian Revolution.
At every momentous time in the recent history of our incessant crisis ridden Federation, Major General Olusegun Obasanjo seems for good or bad to be catapulted from nowhere to affect the resolution of any impending catastrophy.
In 1966, during the dramatic brinkmanship between Major Kaduna Nzeogwu, commanding the Northern troops against his Supreme Commander, General Aguiyi Ironsi, Major Olusegun Obasanjo was the man Nzeogwu trusted to carry his revolutionary demands to Lagos.
The history of the Nigerian civil war was almost decided after the Midwest, Ore and Okitipupa had fallen to the Biafran forces! But for Obasanjo’s stubborn mobilisation of the Western defense as the Commander of the Ibadan Garrison. Denying the Biafrans entry into the West, his counter attack delayed the invading troops and from there he turned the tide of the entire war.
In 1970 again, his surprise appointment as the Commander of the Third Marine Commandoes offered him the opportunity to lead the final assault against Biafra and ultimately secured the historic surrender from the beleaguered nation.
Last weekend, before the shootout at Asaba, the pillage at Afara and the bloody clash at Ariaria market in Aba, General Obasanjo had called for a meeting between the Nigerian President, General Muhammadu Buhari and the embattled leader of the IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu. He was so sure that a meeting of those two feuding tendencies might go a long way in helping return normalcy to the disturbed entity.
Earlier when most Nigerians were casting aspersions against Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, Obasanjo came out with his Nzeogwu and derailed the young Majors traducers. In that most important work, Obasanjo told us that Chukwuma’s birth and upbringing in Kaduna broadened his horizons and coupled with his personal discipline and excellent military training, Nigeria by Independence was blessed to witness the popular upsurge of a charismatic officer, totally detribalised, an exceptional patriot and a Pan Africanist.
In presenting to us the Chukwuma intuitive portrait, Obasanjo went further, “Chukwuma had a dream of a great Nigeria, a global force. He had a dream of an orderly society free from graft where everybody is his brother’s keeper irrespective of language, tribe and religion. He dreamt of a nation where social justice and economic interest of its citizens will not be subjugated to foreign control. Chukwuma, according to Obasanjo, believed in the ability of the black man to contest the globe. Like the great Avatars, Alexander the great, the Greek Prince deity, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Chukwuma lived for thirty years, the last two of which he spent trying to achieve his dream for the country of his birth and the country he loved. Obasanjo believed that Chukwuma was not a violent man by nature. It was his ability to suppress sentiments and his tremendous will power that determined his course of action which he knew was obviously dangerous.